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Then the doors exploded open.
“I’m going to fucking kill you.” A deep voice thundered.
I felt myself slip to the floor as Shah’s body was no longer pressed against mine.
A gun fired, and I covered my ears far too long after the fact.
I heard screaming, and I frantically and unsteadily pushed myself up off the ground and pulled myself to my feet, using the desk. My ankles refused to hold me upright in my shoes and I struggled to reach for the straps to kick them off, but couldn’t muster the strength to remove them.
My vision started to swirl, and I tried to push the face in front of me away as wide, warm hands held my face. “Are you alright?” The face slowly came into focus, Mason.
He spoke so softly.Sosoftly. “Did he touch you?” There was such strain in his voice, his eyes came into focus, such concern. I could feel those safe, comforting hands searching over my body, taking inventory, gently checking me.
“I thought he was going to–” I couldn’t even finish the sentence, partly because I didn’t want to speak the words and partly because my brain fought against my every thought, slowing them down, mixing them up.
More screaming and then Mason turned for a brief moment, and another shot fired. “I will deal withyouin a fucking minute.”
“Wait in the hall.” Mason commanded me. I could feel the rage building in his voice. “I’ll be right there.”
“Mason–”
“Hallway.” He said firmly, and was already turned back to Shah.
I stumbled across the room, and steadied myself using the leather sofa that was halfway between me and the door, and that was as far as I made it.
I suddenly zoned in on Shah wide eyed and bleeding on the floor. Mason took the butt of his gun and smashed Shah’s left kneecap. The sound of it made me want to hurl, and I did. I felt my eyes fluttering shut, and I wanted to lay on the floor so badly. Everything was swirling, my heart was racing, my grip on the couch slipped and I crumpled to the floor. I strained to keep my eyes open, my cheek pressed into such soft carpet, and I blinked as I looked at the dusty bunnies under the sofa.
“Fuck.” I felt Mason’s arms slip under me, and I was going up, up, up, and then the room was spinning. Finally, the spinning slowed, and Mason gently set me on the floor in the hallway. “Keep your eyes closed.” I felt him sweep my hair out of my face, and pull my dress back down over my hips, and then his footsteps got farther and farther away on the plush carpet.
I looked to my right, and the two security guards were unconscious and bleeding out on the floor. It was so much blood; I reached out to grip something, anything, but there was nothing to ground myself to.
So I leaned against the wall and hurled. Over and over again. From the sight of the blood, from the nausea of the drugs in my system, from what I had just thought was about to happen to me. It was all too much.
I struggled to scoot to the side of my vomit and I leaned against the wall, slowly sinking down onto the cool marble floor that laid at the edge of the thick carpeted hallway runner. The marble felt so incredibly cool against my hot skin; it was a welcome sensation.
I sank to the floor and laid my cheek against the cool marble and stared at the carpet fibers in front of me, looking at how they twisted and curled in on one another. I ran my hand over it lazily, so dense, so soft.
There was more screaming from the room, and what was left of the door suddenly closed, and I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to block out the sound of the screams.
Finally, Mason appeared, and he gently propped me up. I could hardly focus my eyes, but as I did, I saw the blood all over his hands, the way it speckled the white of his shirt.
I watched him wipe his hands on his pants and then I felt the floor steadily moving away from me, as my body went up, up, up. Finally, I settled against a familiar chest, and breathed in his comforting smell, as the hallway spun with each step he took.
21
MASON
I locked the bathroom door,and I turned around and lunged forward and barely caught Emma just as she was about to keel off the padded stool in the bathroom.
I gripped her under the shoulders, keeping her upright. “Emma?” I couldn’t make out what she said. She mumbled incoherently again, and just blinked at me. I checked her pulse. It was racing, her eyes were glazed over. As I gazed at her, I tried to steady my rage at the realization that she’d been drugged.
My chest heaved as I held her. If I’d been– I couldn’t think about what nearly happened. That I nearly didn’t get to her in time, that I’d been gone long enough that she was nearly rendered vulnerable and unconscious by that sleazy piece of shit.
“Did you kill him?” She asked, as I moved her to the sofa. I grimaced, and she continued, “Did you– that was the guy. Shah–” She mumbled.
“I’m gonna take you home, Emma. So you can sleep. Can you try to keep your eyes open a little longer for me?” She slumped lower into the couch in response.
With her securely on the couch for the moment, I quickly went to the sink and turned on the hot water, and began scrubbing the blood off my hands furiously. The white sink basin turned pink as I scrubbed the layers of blood off my hands. I quickly dabbed my shirt and face, trying to clean myself up the best I could.
